Methods and systems for locating a golf ball
A method for locating a golf ball including changing a temperature of a golf ball from a first temperature to a second temperature before use or marking the ball by reflective (mirror) or fluorescent material (e.g., NIR-IR fluorescent dye). The temperature changed ball is struck. Using either a thermal imaging camera with an imaging processing unit or a near-infrared (NIR) imaging camera with an imaging processing unit to produce a digital image of a part of the golf course with a potential golf ball location. An image processing technique is applied to produce an enhanced image of the golf ball location. A thermal imaging camera and a NIR imaging camera for locating a golf ball are described. A non-transitory computer readable media is described.
1. A method for locating a golf ball, the method comprising:
changing a temperature of a golf ball from a first temperature to a second temperature before use;
striking the temperature changed ball on a golf course;
using a thermal imaging camera with an imaging processing unit to produce a digital image of a part of the golf course with a potential golf ball location; and
applying an image processing technique to produce an enhanced image of the golf ball location, wherein the image processing technique is based on image focusing using special transformation of the observed data involving focusing minimum gradient support (MGS) stabilizer, which minimizes the total area with nonzero gradients of brightness and thus generates a sharp and focused image of the ball, and by using the multinary transformation approach, wherein the brightness is described by a brightness distribution, {tilde over (ρ)} i , using a superposition of error function:
ρ
˜
i
=
E
(
ρ
i
)
=
c
ρ
i
+
1
2
∑
j
=
1
P
[
1
+
erf
(
ρ
i
-
ρ
(
j
)
2
σ
j
)
]
where ρ={ρ i },i=1, . . . , N m , is an original vector of model parameters, {tilde over (ρ)}={{tilde over (ρ)} i },i=1, . . . , N m , is a new vector of the nonlinear parameters, and P is a total number of discrete (multinary) values of the brightness, ρ (j) , function E(ρ i ) is an error function, parameter σ j is a standard deviation of the value ρ (j) , and constant c is a small number to avoid singularities in calculation of derivatives of multinary brightness.
2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein a difference between the first temperature and the second temperature is more than one degree Celsius.
3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the image processing technique is based on the multinary transformation approach, which processes the original image into the multinary image with the properties that the brightness distribution is characterized by a finite number of discrete values of the brightness with the preassigned value of 0 for the ball location to produce a bright and focused image of the ball location.
4. A method according to claim 1 , wherein changing the temperature of the ball before its use by the golfer further comprises cooling the golf ball.
5. A method according to claim 1 , wherein changing the temperature of the ball before its use by the golfer further comprises heating the golf ball.
6. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions thereon that are executable to apply the image processing technique of claim 1 to produce an enhanced image of the golf ball location.
7. A thermal imaging camera for locating a golf ball, the thermal imaging camera comprising:
a processor;
an image processing unit; and
memory having instructions executable to:
produce a digital image of a part of a golf course with a potential golf ball location; and
apply the image processing technique of claim 1 to produce an enhanced image of the golf ball location.
8. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the image processing minimizes the total area with nonzero gradients of the brightness using the following equation:
S
(
M
1
)
=
∫
[
∇
M
1
(
x
,
y
)
]
2
[
∇
M
1
(
x
,
y
)
]
2
+
e
2
d
s
where M 1 is an enhanced image and e controls the sharpness of the image.
9. A non-transitory computer readable media including instructions stored thereon that are executable to:
obtain a digital image of the part of the golf course with a potential golf ball location; and
apply an image processing technique to produce an enhanced image of a golf ball location, wherein the image processing technique is based on image focusing using special transformation of the observed data involving focusing minimum gradient support (MGS) stabilizer, which minimizes the total area with nonzero gradients of brightness and thus generates a sharp and focused image of the ball, and by using the multinary transformation approach, wherein the brightness is described by a brightness distribution, {tilde over (ρ)} i , using a superposition of error function:
ρ
˜
i
=
E
(
ρ
i
)
=
c
ρ
i
+
1
2
∑
j
=
1
P
[
1
+
erf
(
ρ
i
-
ρ
(
j
)
2
σ
j
)
]
where ρ={{tilde over (ρ)} i }, i=1, . . . , N m , is an original vector of model parameters, {tilde over (ρ)}={{tilde over (ρ)} i }, i=1, . . . , N m , is a new vector of the nonlinear parameters, and P is a total number of discrete (multinary) values of the brightness, ρ (j) , function E(ρ i ) is an error function, parameter σ j is a standard deviation of the value ρ (j) , and constant c is a small number to avoid singularities in calculation of derivatives of multinary brightness.
10. A non-transitory computer readable media according to claim 9 , wherein the image processing technique includes receiving thermal information.
11. A non-transitory computer readable media according to claim 9 , wherein the image processing technique includes receiving NIR information.